


Dungeons and Stupid-Ass Lizards

by Iwovepizza



Series: Creature AUs [5]
Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe- Dragons, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon Kaz, Dragon Matthias, Dragon Riders, Dragon Wylan, Dragonrider Inej, Dragonrider Jesper, Dragonrider Nina, Dragons, F/M, Fire Dragons, Hurt/Comfort, Kaz legit needs a hug, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Shadow Dragons, Soldat Sol, hurt kaz, ice dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9440090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwovepizza/pseuds/Iwovepizza
Summary: Being a dragon rider means that both the rider and their dragon have to watch each other's backs, but it gets a bit tricky to do that when the dragon is constantly getting itself into trouble.(Or that one where Nina and Matthias are away and the rest of the Dregs have to try and survive in Ketterdam)





	

_“Don’t fashion me into a maiden that needs saving from a dragon._

_I am the dragon, and I will eat you whole.”_

_-Anonymous_

\----Ӝ----

 

            Inej should’ve never let Kaz go outside on his own. She should’ve never caved to those soft touches and those pleading puppy eyes.

            Now everything was falling apart.

            She paced back and forth like a tiger in a gilded cage, checking the clock every five seconds as if it were going to sneak up on her. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she wore a path into them, and Jesper watched on from the couch with a pinched expression as he polished his guns for the umpteenth time to try and calm himself. Wylan was curled next to him, his wings folded tightly against his back and his orange scales glittering in the light of the candles that flickered and sputtered, and he occasionally nuzzled Jesper’s leg in an attempt to comfort, but to no avail.

            “It’s going to be alright,” the dragon assured, his reptilian eyes clearly stating that he was trying to convince himself. “Kaz will be back soon.”

            “Yeah, but he’s _always_ punctual. He’d know that if he was even the slightest bit late it would give me a heart attack, right?” Inej fretted, chewing on her nails. “God, I wish Nina hadn’t moved to Fjerda with Matthias. I really, really need her guidance right now. That damn ice dragon’s climatic needs aren’t worth it, if you ask me.”

            “Just stop worrying so much,” Jesper stated, clearly worrying. “He can fend for himself. If it was Wylan I wouldn’t be so sure-”

            “Hey!” Wylan harrumphed, drawing away from Jesper sharply to sit on the arm of the couch. The frills on his neck quivered, and smoke curled from his nostrils. “Just because I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t blowtorch people.”

            “Kaz can barely fit in this house. Matthias _certainly_ can’t fit. You’re pretty damn small,” Jesper noted, and the fire dragon puffed up indignantly, though it was hard for him to look menacing when he was about the size of a Labrador. To Inej, Jesper said, “It’s going to be fine. Go out looking for him with Wylan. I’ll stay back in case he arrives. Got it?”

            “Got it,” Inej replied thinly, grabbing the nearest knife off of the table and slipping into the night, and after a moment, a mousy-haired, freckle-faced redhead boy joined her. It took a few moments of awkward tottering, but eventually Wylan got the hang of his human form and the two of them took off at a brisk pace. Their footsteps echoed throughout the narrow streets, and Inej tried to ignore the way the stone brick buildings leaned over them, their doors like gaping mouths and their windows like dark eyes that tracked their every movement. This was the exact reason why she preferred the rooftops, not to mention the fact that the cobblestones underfoot were unlike the smooth shingles on the roofs, and Inej found herself unused to the uneven ground. Wylan seemed no more relaxed than Inej, his gaze darting this way and that and his breath making the air cloud with steam even more so than the human’s. His internal body temperature was much higher, and he seemed to be discomforted by the cold; after all, dragons were still reptiles.

            They wound their way through the serpentine streets, their eyes wandering in a search for the incredibly elusive shadow dragon that was Kaz Brekker. It would be incredibly difficult to find him, his scales the same obsidian shade as the darkness in which he usually lurked, but there was a shine to them that Inej was always able to pick out, a slight glint off of the glossy, interlocking links of armor that gave away the dragon’s position. Not to mention the fact that his eyes glowed gold when he was in distress.

            Then, suddenly, Wylan tensed all over. He looked up, his blue eyes widening to the size of dinner plates, and suddenly took off down the path. Inej scrambled to catch up, her heart jackhammering in her chest and air sawing in and out of her lungs as Wylan swerved sharply down another street. Despite his clumsiness at first, as well as being accustomed to flying instead of going on foot, Wylan could run unbelievably fast if he really wanted to. It was like his feet never touched the ground, and in that split second, with Inej watching the way Wylan’s coat billowed around him as his feet barely hit the stones, he looked inhuman. It was only for a moment through, because that’s when the dragon veered left and Inej had to concentrate on not falling behind. She considered herself to be a fast person, but never in her wildest dreams would she compare her speed to that of a mystical creature such as this one.

            Wylan came to a screeching halt, and Inej almost toppled into him as she skidded to a stop. She was just about to ask him what the holdup was when she saw the trail of blood leading into the alley to their right. When she stooped down, she saw the telltale signs that it wasn’t, indeed, human blood, but rather the slightly more glittery ichor that dragons bled. She froze then, and peered into the blackness beyond, where the ichor led. The glint of scales could be seen.

            “Kaz?” she called softly, approaching with caution. Kaz had a nasty habit of lashing out when he was injured, and she didn’t want to have to defend herself and potentially cause the dragon even more pain. “Kaz are you alright?” Wylan stood by respectfully, wringing his hands and shifting his weight from foot to foot, and he seemed ready to intervene if she encountered a problem. Inej extended her hand, beginning to wade into the dark, when a warm snout pressed against her palm, hot breath ghosting over her fingers. “Kaz!”

            “Help,” Kaz whispered, his eyes glowing faintly. “Inej, please help.”

            “Oh my god, what happened?” Inej cried, stepping forwards, but Kaz shied away.

            “I was on a roof, so I thought that I was in the clear. I’ve been cooped up in the Slat for all of my life because it wasn’t safe, and now I know…”

            “Tell me what happened,” Inej demanded firmly, planting her hands on her hips. She didn’t care if Kaz was a horse-sized, ten-foot-long lizard that was perfectly capable of barbequing her. She was going to get answers right here and now; they were linked, their destinies and souls entwined, and if Kaz just so happened to die, then she would probably die, too. It wasn’t like in those stupid, sappy stories where the linked people could feel each other’s emotions and pain. This was sudden. If Kaz was bleeding, Inej wouldn’t feel it until the dragon died, and vice versa. They were both lucky that Wylan had been able to sense him.

            “I didn’t think there wasn't anyone around, and I made sure that nobody could see me from the ground and…” Kaz paused, and Inej heard him shifting in his discomfort. “I changed.”

            “Kaz!” Wylan shrilled, his pupils slitting. “How foolish of you! You know what people here do to people like us. We’re no better off than Grisha.”

            “I know, I know,” Kaz murmured, for once not snapping back at the person reprimanding him. “But the moonlight felt really nice on my wings, so I spread them.” Wylan inhaled sharply. “I didn’t know that the edge of one wing could be seen from the ground, and the guy whose shop I was resting on came out and saw.”

            Inej sighed, stepping forwards so she could run her hands over the dragon’s face. She turned to see the outline of a wing in the darkness, saw how it was potmarked with holes. “Oh, Kaz.” He would never fly again, and his sorrow was almost tangible as he allowed his head to be cradled in Inej’s hands. She shouldn’t’ve let him outside, should’ve just let him wander in the cave system beneath the Slat until they were ready to move him to a place that was more accepting of dragons, preferably anywhere but Kerch. But he’d been so excited to be outside, so excited to go somewhere other than the caves where he was born and raised. Wylan was fine- he was small and fast. But Kaz wasn't. He hadn’t seen any humans other than Nina, Inej, and Jesper, and all of them had been exceptionally kind to him when his care was handed down to them by other dragonriders. That was their fault for not exposing him to the outside in little bits and pieces, but there was a reason for that.

            Kaz was most likely the last shadow dragon in existence.

            It had started when people sifting through the ashes of one of the many volcanos in the Wandering Isle found what they’d thought was a gigantic hulk of obsidian. Only, it wasn’t. A few days later, a small dragon with scales the same color of the egg it hatched out of was wriggling about, and even the most experienced dragonriders hadn’t known what to do with it. So they brought it to Kerch, where an underground system of caves and tunnels would serve as the little dragon’s whole world. Back then, Kerch had just been a new, budding nation, whose people were too busy importing and exporting goods to try to capture and skin the tiny reptile. Now, several centuries later, it was much too dangerous for a dragon to go anywhere but in human form.

            “I’m so sorry,” Inej sniffled, hugging Kaz’s neck. She ran her hands over his body and found large chunks of scales missing, torn off by those who’d attacked him. Dragons were strong, but new technology made sure that they were no match for large groups, armed with guns and knives capable of splitting through scales. Her fury was unparalleled.

            “Let’s get you home,” she murmured.

            A month and a half later, both the owner of the store that Kaz had sat atop and his friends were dead, their bodies and the bodies of their families found in the cinders of their houses, which had caught fire under unexpected and unsolved circumstances.

 

\----Ӝ----

 

            Matthias was _way_ too conspicuous.

            Nina thought he was cute and all, but she really couldn’t go out in public with him, much less for long walks on the beach. He was too big and bulky, too prone to knocking things over and bumping into people. He was a sweetheart, really, but the word ‘sweetheart’ didn’t really come to mind when regarding a gigantic reptile that was one hundred feet long. She’d promised him they’d go out, though, and now all she could do is walk along awkwardly as Matthias tromped along, his huge feet leaving dinosaur-like imprints in the sand. All of the beachgoers had fled the shore long beforehand, and now people were clustered by the railing that separated the elevated boardwalk from the beach, their swords drawn and their expressions agape. Even the Grisha seemed to have lost the ability to move as they watched Matthias with wide eyes.

            “This is quite fun,” Matthias rumbled, shaking his boat-sized head and nearly clobbering Nina with his icicle-like, translucent horns in the process. “We should do this again some time.”

            “Our stay is quite unwelcome,” Nina noted, wrapping her red _kefta_ more tightly around herself. It was early winter, after all, and just cold enough that Matthias wouldn’t overheat. Ice dragons were native to mostly Fjerda and the Permafrost, after all, and Nina had been fretting throughout the entire flight down here that the ice dragon would be too hot. Matthias was fine, though, and his tail swung back and forth lazily as his frosty blue eyes took in the ocean.

            “They seem fine,” Matthias responded, his ear flapping idly. “Would you like me to freeze some of them so that the others get the idea that their staring is impolite?”

            “Of course not!” Nina insisted quickly. “You have to get used to it. Only fire dragons and timber dragons are native to this place. They think you’re…exotic.”

            “This is far from the worship that I have witnessed in Fjerda,” the ice dragon pouted. “I thought I was a very likable person.”

            “In your dreams, grumpy,” Nina scoffed with a roll of her eyes. “I wonder how Inej and the others are doing. They haven’t written in a while.”

            “I hope they’ve let Kaz out of that ridiculous cave system by now. No amount of orders from the hierarchy of the ‘Soldat Sol’ or whatever the dragon riders call themselves should keep them from letting that poor dragon see some sunlight, no matter how rare his species is. He was getting incredibly bored.”

            “If they have let him out, they haven’t told us about it,” Nina responded running her hands over Matthias’ gigantic flank and feeling the cool scales beneath her fingers.

            “I hope nothing has gone wrong.”

            “Since when do things go wrong when the Dregs are involved?” Nina demanded, planting her hands on her hips, and Matthias swiveled his head around to give her a look.

            “Since forever.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably write more in the future, but this was mostly a little thing I did up in order to ease some of my writer's bloc. Hope you liked it!


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